


no light, no light

by purplefennels7



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Canonical Character Death, Cedric is in 4th year and Oliver is in 6th, Dreams, M/M, Memories, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:43:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6915109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/pseuds/purplefennels7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Triwizard Tournament, Oliver doesn't know how to live without Cedric by his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started something during finals week to get me back into writing, and it got a little out of hand. Kudos to my friend for motivation.  
> Enjoy!  
> \------  
> Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling and Universal Studios. I'm just borrowing Oliver and Cedric for a bit.  
> Titles are from Florence and the Machine's "No Light, No Light"

_ you can’t choose what stays and what fades away _

“Wood. Oliver.  OLIVER! ” Oliver’s eyes focused onto his Seeker, crouching by the fire in the Gryffindor common room. It was the wee hours of the morning, and Oliver was slumped in an armchair before the dying fire, eyes glassy and unseeing. He couldn’t force himself to sleep, because then his demons could rise again, vested in nightmare after nightmare that had woken him from sleep in a cold sweat for days after the Triwizard Tournament.

“I don’t want to talk to you, Potter.” He turned his head enough to block out Harry’s piercing green gaze, but not quickly enough to miss his flinch. Oliver was about to get up and walk away when Harry spoke again. 

“I know.” And those simple words made Oliver stop, because what was he doing? It wasn’t Harry’s fault that-no. He couldn’t think about him, not now; the pain was still too close, too fresh, too raw. Oliver sighed and turned to face Harry again. 

“Okay, okay. What do you want?”

“I, um, just wanted to tell you, um, in the maze, what, uh, Cedric told me.” Oliver froze; that was the last thing he wanted to hear. He dithered for a moment, torn between walking away and letting Harry say his piece. He chose the second-there was nothing he could hear that would compare to what he was feeling.

“Yes?” and he was absurdly proud of how evenly the words came out.

“He loved you, Oliver. That’s what he told me to tell you, before he, uh-” Harry broke off into a poorly stifled sob. “H-he loved you.” And then he was giving Oliver a watery smile and turning away towards the staircase of the boys’ dorms. Oliver was sitting  frozen at the edge of his armchair with  _ he loved you, he loved you, he loved you _ running over and over through his mind, because the last time Cedric had told him he loved him was the last time Oliver had seen his boyfriend alive. He slumped back into his chair, buried his face in the red fabric, cast a Silencing Charm, and let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a shriek, because why was the universe determined to make his life miserable?

\-----------------------------------------------OW/CD-------------------------------------------------

Oliver raised a hand in a lazy greeting as Cedric came sprinting across the grass towards where Oliver was standing beneath the old elm tree by the Quidditch pitch. Evening was falling as the students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang gathered for the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, and the buzz of chatter floated through the chilly air, words lost in the breeze by the time they reached him. Oliver braced himself as Cedric came crashing into him, knocking him back a few steps and bumping the two of them into the tree trunk. Cedric was flushed and grinning from his mad sprint across the grounds, a Tempus charm floating over his head, and his lips were warm against Oliver’s cold ones as he leant in for a kiss. 

“Moody says I have seven minutes,” he mumbled against Oliver’s mouth, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the ticking Tempus.

“Better than nothing,” Oliver replied, lips curving into a grin. Cedric tasted like he always did, like an odd mixture of peppermint and pecans, and Oliver lost himself in the kiss, hoping that it would never end, that he could stay there forever. Suddenly, the younger boy broke the kiss, a worried look coming over his face. Oliver futilely chased the warmth of his mouth for a second before he registered the other’s expression. 

“Ced, what’s wrong?” he asked, seeing a bit of a wild light come into Cedric’s eyes, making their blue depths gleam with something that looked suspiciously like madness.

“Oh, Oliver, love… I-I don’t know about this task. It kinda feels...wrong, I guess. Like something bad’s going to happen. I don’t know, though.” Oliver was suddenly taken back to an incident a few months ago, before they’d even known the Tournament was happening. He’d dreamt of Cedric, dead, with one hand clutching a golden cup and the other his wand, spread-eagled on the unforgiving ground, with dark walls surrounding him and someone kneeling beside him, shoulders shaking with sobs. Suddenly, everything fell into place, like a lock clicking open with a murmur of  _ Alohomora _ . The golden cup-that was the Triwizard Cup, the dark walls the hedgerow walls of the maze, and the person...the person was himself.

“Cedric, remember that one dream I had a while back? You can’t go-you can’t go into that maze! I think that was a vision, or something… I mean, I’m no Seer, I got a D in Divination, but it just feels… real, you know,” Oliver cried, looking frantic. 

“Oliver, I can’t. I’m Hogwarts Champion, I  have to go,” Cedric said, but he looked as pale as a sheet and was visibly trembling. 

“Cedric, I-” Oliver broke off, voice snapping like dry kindling as Cedric’s Tempus went off. 

“Oliver, love, I’ll be fine,” Cedric said, dispelling the charm with a wave of his wand. “I love you, okay? Just remember that.”  One last too-short kiss, and Cedric hurried away towards the maze. Oliver watched him go until the gloom of the evening swallowed his figure. A sick feeling growing in his heart, Oliver trudged towards the bleachers in search of a place to sit with the other Gryffindors. 

And when Harry showed up, hours later, babbling about You-Know-Who and carrying a dead Cedric in his arms, when Oliver collapsed beside his boyfriend’s body and sobbed, all he could think was  _ No, my love, you weren’t fine. You. Weren’t. Fine.  _


	2. Chapter 2

_you're my head, you're my heart_

 

Oliver hovered in front of the Quidditch hoops, watching Gryffindor playing Hufflepuff. Normally, Oliver would be elated-Gryffindor was utterly destroying Hufflepuff, even with Harry not flying his best-he’d been injured, _again_. But...no. Quidditch didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t hold the same thrill that it once had. Gryffindor could easily defeat Hufflepuff now-and that was the problem. Oliver often found himself searching the pitch for the familiar head of blond hair, tailing Harry and searching for the Snitch, and it always hurt twice as much when he wasn’t there, because Oliver had let himself believe, if only for a second, that Cedric was still alive.

    If not for Quidditch, Oliver might not have met Cedric at all, since they were-no, had been-two years apart. Oliver had been in love with Quidditch from the moment his father had first taken him out on a pitch with a practice broom, but it had taken on a different guise once he’d started dating Cedric. When Oliver and Cedric were together, Quidditch wasn’t just a game. It had been what had brought them together, it had been the subject of their first  actual conversation, it had been theirs; two boys in love with each other and with the sky.

    But now, now that Cedric was gone forever, Oliver just couldn’t find the love he’d once had for the game. Sure, it was exhilarating; biting nails as Angelina rolled to avoid a Bludger while hanging on to her broom with one hand and the Quaffle in the other, crossing fingers as Harry plunged into a daredevil dive after the Snitch, but _something_ was missing. He didn’t know quite what it was, but he couldn’t deny that there was something there. Oliver felt a sudden stab of anger towards Cedric for ruining Quidditch for him, for depriving him of the one thing that could’ve kept him sane after losing Cedric himself. When Cedric had died, it had struck Oliver in not one way, but two. On that terrible night in late June, Oliver had first lost the boy he loved, and, although he hadn’t realized it at the time, the only other thing that came close to what he’d felt for Cedric: Quidditch. He suddenly had a compulsive urge to throw something. He still doesn’t know exactly what made him do it, but one thing was for sure-it was the most idiotic move of his entire Quidditch career. One of the Hufflepuff Chasers was coming his way with the Quaffle in hand, and Oliver abandoned the goalposts, snatched the Quaffle from the surprised Hufflepuff, and threw it with all his strength and anger in his body. It flew all the way across the pitch, whizzed past the Hufflepuff Keeper’s head, and shot through the center goalpost, thunking loudly into the wards surrounding the pitch.

While the Chasers on both teams were flying headlong toward the other end of the pitch, Harry performed an impeccable Plumpton Pass and scooped the Snitch up his sleeve in the middle of Madame Hooch’s tirade at Oliver for committing one foul or the other. Lee Jordan, observant as ever, caught the movement and shouted the match’s results into his magical microphone. Angelina turned back from her mad dash across the pitch, only to see Oliver floating glassy-eyed in midair with a Bludger accelerating towards him.

"OLIVER!" she screamed, but it was too late. He snapped out of his stupor seconds before the Bludger connected with the back of his skull. Angelina streaked across the pitch with Katie at her tail, just in time to catch an unconscious Oliver before he hit the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope they aren't OOC; I haven't read the books in a while (summer project!) Let me know what you think.


End file.
